Cathy's Game

After resting for the night, the wizard is able to decipher some of the runes on switches in the control room. One that says power elevates the house a few feet, but the ones that are labeled forward, reverse, etc. are covered by a force field. There are also individual unlock buttons and a master unlock button. After turning off the power and letting the house settle the wizard unlocks all the doors. The party also finds bins of identical maps advertising adventuring to the locations this house could be at. The party decides to go after the treasure room. The party spider climbs over the razor lined wall and the ninja jumps over it. The next room half the party believes an illusion that they are rapidly aging and the ninja leaves the room and sees the aging disappear, the wizard had already determined it is an illusion. The wizard unblocks the one blocked door and allows a yeth hound to escape and attack the party. The party kills the yeth
hound after it scares off the ninja and wizard before it is dispatched. The next room is filled with mist and each party member sees a different monster, but the witch and dwarf see through the illusion. There is an orb in the middle of the room that the wizard picks up and takes with him. There are two ways out a doorway filled with water and a long corridor with rotted barrels in it. The ninja finds a trap in the corridor as the rest of the party lay out plans to bait a hook and get the giant shark out. The rogue cannot disable the first trap and shoots the trap to set off a large explosion. The ninja is able disable the next trap and finds that the rotted barrels are filled with tubes of powder and connected with wires. The rogue shoot s a barrel from a distance since it blocks the door and sets off a chain reaction of explosions. The rest of the party hooks and drags out of the water the giant shark which flops around until death. The party
comes to see what the ninja discovered and the wizard scoops up some of the loose explosive powder, since the ninja had already retrieved the five intact tubes of explosives. The door opens into a room with a pedestal surrounded by warrior statues. The ninja doesn’t find any traps and the dwarf picks up the key off the pedestal. After opening the door across the room, it opens into a brick wall. The dwarf does find a secret door that the key opens, and the next room is a sitting room with mantle and clock. The ninja finds a key on the mantle and finds no traps, so the dwarf picks it up. As the monk tries to rip the clock off the mantle he knocks the hands back and time reverses. The dwarf plays with the clock and eventually removes the mantle and finds out the device is now broken. The door out of the room leads to a hallway with three painting. The monk begins to be pulled into a painting and the witch grabs him. The ninja removes the sheet
off the last painting and barely avoids being turned to stone by the basilisk. The ninja breaks the glass of the painting and throws his bag of explosives into the basilisk room, when it doesn’t die he hurries everyone through the hallway and closes the door. The next room has a magnetized ceiling that the ninja and dwarf are pulled to the ceiling as the room has water pumped into it, but the dwarf and ninja make their strength checks and move into the next room which is dark. The dwarf can see through the room and sees a pit in the middle of the room with an adventurer pinioned on spikes on the bottom of the pit. The room lights up and reflected by the mirror walls and blinds everyone. When their vision returns the party sees a crumpled map like the kind they found in bins in the main room, luring adventurers to the house. The next room contains an illusory copy of the wizard’s rogue friend Tobias. The ninja chooses to believe it is an
illusion and gets backstabbed by the all too real rogue. The party dispatches the rogue and discovers it is just another human who was illusioned to look like the rogue. The next room contains a pyramid and a female vampire who says, “Only in death can you see the last door.” The ninja scampers away back to the aquarium room. The rest of the party try to bargain and figure out if there is a riddle. After the wizard determines it is a vampire spawn and not a full fledged vampire. The party moves to attack and the dwarf is dominated and criticals the wizard. The vampire spawn drains a level from the monk, and the wizard drops her with a spell. When the monk touches the door it asks for a password. After not guessing the password the dwarf attempts to break the door and does nothing to it. The party tries to get through the basilisk room that the ninja had closed his eyes and climbed the walls around. The party throws a few explosive vials
in and doesn’t kill the basilisk. The party engages the basilisk and after it turns the witch to stone, the party manages to slay it with blind swings. The wizard ascertains that using the basilisk’s blood will allow them to return the witch to flesh, which it does.

The shadows attack the party. The party finds it hard to attack the incorporeal creatures. Only the magical weapons have a chance to hurt the shadows. The ninja tumbles away into the darkness and begins to work on the door out. The ninja cannot get the door open and charges a shadow with the wand of cure light wounds. The party through spells and magic weapons whittle down the shadows. After the battle the ninja is very weak, but after finding three scrolls, the wizard uses one to restore the dwarf to normal size. The party enters the next room and finds a man bound and hanging in manacles, as the wizard approaches and the man’s chains tighten and he screams in pain. The wizard stops moving towards him and cast sleep on the man, then realizing the man is an illusion. The stairs upwards end in a door with a knife blade as a door knob. The door down stairs is an open mouth, which wants to be fed and likes dwarf. The dwarf is able to turn the
bladed door knob and opens the door. The room is full of gorillas. The dwarf feeds the mouth door and it opens to a room with two gems on the floor. The diamond is trapped and the ruby is fake. The ninja disables the trap and finds the diamond fits the door exiting the room, fitting the diamond opens the door. The door opens into a hallway the ninja finds a rolling rock trap and disables it. The door at the end of the hall has a glyph of warding and a window. Through the window they see a room, with a floating stone block, a cork in a hole in the wall and a stone statue of a werewolf in the corner. The ninja disables the glyph of warning and unlocks the door and as he opens the door an alarm sounds. The wizards mage hands the scroll from under the stone and sees it is a scroll of dispel magic. The ninja jumps up to the top of the stone and finds a trap door unlocks it and opens it into a dark room. He tosses a rope down to the party and the
dwarf pulls the cork to release a stream of acid. The party climbs up into the room to find 49 adventurers turned into glass, and no way out. The wizard levitates down and replaces the cork and the dwarf pulls over the statue to uncover a drain the lets the acid drain. The ninja makes his way back to the gorilla room and finds two chains that open the door if they can be pulled together in the middle. The dwarf and monk pull the chains to the middle of the room and the door opens. The next room has a statue of a bunny on a pedestal and hand print sockets. The dwarf and monk stick their hands on the sockets and get a charge, the witches hair connects the two and the door opens when the circuit is completed. As the party leaves for the next room the bunny statue roars loudly. The next room contains strobe light and large scorpions are crawling on the ceiling. The party begins to fight the scorpions slowly dropping them one by one, although the
witch falls unconscious. Finding two secret doors, one leads into another room with a wall with razor lined handholds. The other door leads to a study full of mirrors and it also has a crystal ball on a table. The mirror show outside the mansion and into all the rooms.

After their fight with the dragon, the party see the wyrmling take flight away from the cave ledge. The ninja climbs and jumps up the cliff and attaches a rope on the cliff for the party to climb up. The ninja sneaks into the cave to see if anything is still in there. The monk begins to climb and sees Marvus the chaos mage exit the spooky house the party had spotted earlier. He uses some device to make the house disappear and then he disappears. The house reappears about ten foot from its former location. The witch’s familiar finds a symbol on the roof of the mansion that matches the writing on the obelisks. The monk and the ninja find some gold candelabras and goblets amongst chewed up armor and bones. After the raven discovers that a small cave at the back just goes outside. The ninja jump up the last ten feet to the top of the ledge that the mansion is on, then drops a rope for the party to climb up. The ninja searches the door and finds
it unlocked and not trapped the dwarf opens the door but when he enters into the house the door slams shut behind him and locks. All the party members enter the house, the cats begin rubbing up against the dwarf. The witch and wizard find some spellbooks on a shelf, when the wizard grabs one to read, he is turned into a mouse. The dwarf quickly grabs the wizard and sticks him in his beard. The ninja determines one of the doors in not trapped and the dwarf kicks it in and barely stops himself from falling into an abyss. The other door opens easily for the dwarf into a room with a lushly filled with a feast of delectable foods. As the dwarf approaches he notices the food looks fine but smells bad. The door out of the room is locked and the dwarf cannot kick it in. The party sees a large key on the table the ninja sees that it is not trapped and the witch grabs it with her hair. The dwarf pulls a lever which releases a gas which puts the wizard,
monk, and rogue to sleep. The dwarf pulls another lever which causes the witch and ninja laugh hysterically. The witch notices a lever is magical and does dispel magic they pull the lever and return the mage to normal and removes the hysterical laughter. The ninja checks the other levers and identifies lots of elemental damages, two levers he can’t figure out, one which opens a trap door in the ceiling and one that opens the door in the room. The party agrees to open the trapdoor and a extremely large spider falls out. The ninja crits the spider and kills it. Then they pull the lever that opens the door. There is a room that has a hole in it and a hook on the floor holding a key. The wizard mage hands the key and the ninja jumps across the room to open the door and attach a rope for the party to climb across. Looking into the other room it is 60 feet long and filled with murky water. After the wizard climbs across to the door ledge, the
ninja jumps halfway across the room and clings to the wall. The wizard illuminates the water and sees some tentacle creature, who grabs the ninja. The ninja escapes the octopus and jumps to the far door. The wizard kills the tentacle abomination and the ninja opens the door. In the room is a 200 foot ceiling and the door is 150 foot up the other wall. The walls are filled of tapestries and there is a chest on the floor. The chest is not trapped, but the ninja must open the lock. The dwarf finds that the gold inside is illusory but he grabs the ring and puts it on. He feels something weird come over him and cannot take the ring off. The ninja climbs up the wall and knocks some carpets off and one of them flies. The ninja jumps on it and flies up to inspect the door which he opens to reveal a downward spiral staircase. The rogue triggers a pressure plate which fires at the ninja until he disables it and then disables another trap. At the
bottom of the stairs there is a door guarded by a warrior with a crossbow statue. The ninja opens the door and reveals a room with three doors and a whole in the middle of the hole. There are loud sounds of breathing from the hole and the ninja sneaks across the room. The first door bites the ninja’s probe and he sneaks back across the room to a door with 10 knobs, he begins to disable the traps he discovers on the knobs. He manages to disable all but two one of which seals the hole in the middle of the room which begins filling with water and the other flips the room slamming everyone into the floor. When he gets the rest disabled and unlocks the real knob the room resets and the water drains. The next room has some tiles with arcane runes and a pedestal in the middle with a goblet on top. The dwarf goes to the goblet and drinks it. The dwarf apparently disappears (but really shrinks). The ninja gets across the room and unlocks the next
door, while the wizard and witch decipher the runes, which say “having fun yet?” The next room has one door lots of shadows as it is lit by candles and keys litter the floor. More shadows begin moving.

After knocking the goblin unconscious, the party hears something scratching at a closed door. The ninja finds the door locked and unlocks it to discover a goblin dog who attacks him. The witch slays the goblin dog. Venturing outside the party questions the yellow goblin, Grigknock, who is mystified that all the goblins are green and they mistrusted him. The party also talks to the freed human villagers. The one who has a tail said he bought a charm from a barefoot mage and even when he took off the charm the tail stayed. The other villagers might have also bought these cursed charms. One villager claims the monk is his long lost brother Humberto, the monk thinks he is crazy. When the man presses the claim the monk punches him and knocks him out. The party also finds a bag of three of the glowing devices and the wizard allows the monk to attach one of the devices to the yellow goblin who says that he doesn’t feel different but knows stuff now.
In the meantime the ninja steals one out of the bag but the wizard sees him. The goblin explains a map that the party finds of all the towns the goblins sacked. The monk eventually removes the one from the goblin and attaches it to himself. He knows slightly more than he did before and notices some of the buildings are not where they are supposed to be.
The party begins to escort the villagers back to the nearest unsacked town. Along the way the dwarf finds a shortcut and the party is attacked by a large black dragon. The dragon inexplicitly drops the ninja how has had feather fall cast on him by the wizard. The ninja jumps up 20 ft but fails to pierce the dragon’s hide and falls prone as he slips while landing. The witch manages to blind the dragon with a spell. The dragon becomes confused, but zeroes in on the dwarfs stench. The wizard scorching rays the dragon while the rogue tumbles in and strikes it with both of his swords one of which begins to glow with a holy light. The dragon panics and spews acid which drops a couple of villagers and it begins to melt away at the dwarf. The party continues to peck away at the dragon, but he takes flight again. He comes back to grab the dwarf. The party pounces upon the dragon but its futile efforts. The dragon begins to take off with the dwarf.
The rogue jumps up and criticals the dragon partially severing a muscle, weakening the dragon. The dwarf manages to drive his armor spikes into the dragon’s weak underside. The dragon frightens the monk and ninja, stunning them. After the wizard lowers the dragons strength, the dwarf is dropped. The ninja jumps up and strikes the dragon one last time before he flies out of range. As the dragon returns to use his breath weapon and the wizard launches an arcane blast of fire. The dragon continues to flit in and out of range to use his breath weapon. As the dragon swoops to grab the monk the dwarf charges and fells the beast with two powerful strokes. The party begins to dissect the dragon amongst the cries of the dragon’s wyrmling.

As the party leaves Marvus’ house the dwarf hears two squirrels talking in common. After the ninja jumps into the tree and grabs one and the witch charms the other, they find the squirrels are friends of Marvus. The squirrels thought the adventurers were fine and were not going to worry about them. The squirrels talked about meddlesome gnomes.
On the way the party runs across a sign pointing to Shady Hollow and Willow Thorpe. On the way to Willow Thorpe they come across Shady Hollow which is a gnome village which has been shrunk to miniature size which has been burnt and there are a few tiny corpses. The wizard detects magic and finds two miniature magical daggers.
After leaving the village the witch’s familiar spots a mobile bush which shambles away. No one knows what the bush is. Party runs into the Jets adventuring party, who are looking for goblins in the woods and are told we are in the wrong way. Lola’s raven steals the Jester’s amulet for Lola. The Jets party leaves boasting they will be finding more honor than the party.
The bush follows the party and the wizard chases it off. The dwarf gets hit in the head by rocks and the party sees two koblods in the trees. The ninja sneaks up on them. The party begins to pursue the kobolds. The ninja leaps into a tree to attack one kobold. The other kobolds begin shooting at the monk. The party speeds to catch up the monk and ninja. The ninja leaps from tree to tree attacking the kobolds. The ninja is knocked out of the tree and laid unconscious on the ground and the monk is knocked unconscious as well. The witch heals the ninja and enlarges the dwarf. The enlarged dwarf makes short work of the remaining kobolds. The wizard fells the last kobold and the ninja uses the wand of cure light wounds to heal everyone up. The monk tracks the kobold back to their lair. The ninja sneaks in and his swrds get stuck to the wall as h finds out the cave is magnetic. The ninja retrieves his swords and leaving them outside finds a
stash of loot and a large egg. There is a magical set of +1 full plate that is missing the right leg, masterwork leather armor, and a +1 magic crossbow, and 300 gp. The wizard identifies the egg as a red dragon egg. The dwarf wants to keep the egg and creates a contrivance to drag the egg on. On exiting the cave the party sees a strange obelisk that they know was not there when they came in. The dwarf is not able to identify the metal, nor is the wizard able to read or decipher the inscriptions. The wizard is able to match the writing with writings from one of Marvus’ books about the ancient race.
The party finally reaches the burnt shell of Willow Thorpe and find a troop of goblins. There are captured human villagers (including one with a reptilian tail), and one yellow goblin. There are many green goblins around town. The ninja sneaks around to free the villagers when the party distracts the goblins. The party spreads out to engage the goblins, when they are not drawn away from the prisoners the ninja engages the jailers. The party begins killing goblins, the ninja falls unconscious, and is drug off by a goblin. The party begins mopping up the goblins. The ninja wakes up and springs to a nearby rooftop. The witch’s familiar raven flies to the ninja to help him remove the ropes binding him. The party finds the last goblin, the leader with one of the glowing amulets, barricaded inside a building. After the monk fails to break open the door, the wizard opens a window to shoot at the goblin. The dwarf breaks open the door and the monk
and witch charge in to attack the goblin leader. The ninja comes through the window on the second floor and launches himself through the air to land beside the goblin leader. The ninja crits the goblin disarming him. The monk finally drops him.

Dwarf spots fire in distance. Party takes off to investigate, runs into a party of 5 yellow goblins. They spot the monk and he and the ninja attempt to sneak up. The party figures out the monk cannot be stealthy. Party engages the goblins, the witch enlarges the dwarf to a fearsome size in time for him to charge and split a goblin in two. After killing four of the goblins, the enlarged dwarf grapples the remaining goblin for questioning. Goblin claims all goblins have been yellow. Boss is Gerldaar, he works for Garlock, who the party should be scare of. Gerldaar is near the gnome town of Willow Thorpe which the goblins had sacked. After pantsing the goblin the party release him back into into the wild with a dagger. The dwarf plays nursemaid to the party and tends everyones wounds. The monk and dwarf forage for food and water as the party continues to travel to the wizards abode to retrieve pieces of the rod.
Party encounters a small pond with glowing flying bugs winking on and off above it. The ninja attempts to skirt around while the wizard approaches the pond, and after the monk approaches the dwarf and witch approach. The party comes upon an old abandoned cottage. The party seems empty except for a lot of cats and a pair of burnt shoes in the fireplace. The wizard notices a magically concealed and trapped attic door. The ninja sees and disables the trap and opens the attic door and the party finds a study complete with tapestries, a throne and magical chests. Wizards is attacked by a tapestry as he tries to retrieve some magical books from a table. The dwarf is seized by the throne when he sits in it. The wizard burns the tapestry off and the dwarf stops struggling. The monk opens a closet to receive a spike in his face from a trap, and releases an imp into the room. The ninja discovers and disables a trap on one chest and after unlocking the
chest an ooze slithers out. After a bad swing the dwarf is exhausted. After fighting for a while the wizard is dropped as the ooze’s acid begins to eat through his flesh. The witch heals the wizard and the acid stops burning at his flesh. The dwarf stabilized the wizard and throws the wizards wand to the ninja who uses it to burn the ooze, who then splits in two. The ninja is flanked by the oozes and dropped. The dwarf moves up to the oozes and engages them. The witch enlarges the monk who engages the oozes. The dwarf heroically surges forth and slays one ooze and turns to face the other. The monk attempts to grab the imp and finally succeeds. The witch steps up and takes out the other ooze. The witch and dwarf attempt to hit the invisible grappled imp, and finally manage to kill it. The next day the witch heals everyone and after another day of healing and tending from the monk the party is up and about. The ninja begins searching
another chest which animates and attacks him, he is able to destroy the animated chest. The monk finds a wand, trophy, and a picture album in the closet. The ninja after disabling a trap and opening a difficult lock, finds two pieces of the rod and a wand. After opening the last chest, a skeleton jump out and the monk drops it in one hit. The ninja finds letters in the bottom of the chest.
The party travels off to investigate Willow Thorpe and stumbles across the town of Sherwick (Which out of game was not there before). The party stops to rest at the Red Fox tavern and the Squirrel Run inn. The ninja buys the dwarf drinks and crashes at the temple to be tended to. The wizards surveys the books he took, one of which is a low level spell book. The rest are books of ancient history (dogeared page for using ancient technology to create chaos magic on a wide scale), a chaos wizard, and chaos magic. The ancient race was like no other races and vanished suddenly. Finds out Alderuss’ guild has taken all books about this ancient race’s technology to their library (which has been broken into). The letters are from two other crazy wizards like Marvus who want to set up a chaos magic guild.

The adventurers are at the Redwood Inn with the dead and sleeping goblins. Fergus the Impartial| and his daughter, [[:sarrina-castlemaign|Sarrina, are healing the wounded. Fergus is attempting to heal a goblin. [[:douglan|Douglan]] the dwarf says, “Hey, stop that.” Agath the wizard reassures Fergus that the goblins are only sleeping.
p. Then a little goblin pops his head out of the sewer grate. He looks around and appears surprised. Johnal the ninja critically fumbles his attack. Sam the Suli comes over and kills it with a critical hit.
p. The town damage is being assessed. There’s lots of debris in the streets and many buildings were damaged by boulders and fire. The Whirling Dervish Tavern is heavily burned, and Malcolm’s Relics Shop has taken a great deal of boulder damage. Sam searches through the debris in the relics store and finds a small goblin statuette and other goblin relics. He puts small goblin relics on Tobiasthe rogue’s dead body, which he is dragging around. A matching goblin statuette is found on the goblins that were killed at the inn. Two townsfolk died in the attack. Content Not Found: miles-lynd_, the beggar, was crushed by a boulder, and Duncan Creakshank was burned in the fire in the temple. Roughly 500 goblin bodies,mostly burnt, surround the town. Agath, the wizard, suggests a mass grave. Some townsfolk begin working on that. The townsfolk collect anything of value they find on the goblins. Agath and the others help clean up some rubble in the town. Douglan the dwarf goes to drink at the Tavern that wasn’t burnt, The Sleeping Bear Tavern, saying, “I only kill goblins.” The tavern gets busy as more townsfolk leave the temple for the tavern. Yorrick and Content Not Found: allette-bainbridge_ wedding is postponed, and the tourney contestants begin heading out. Alderus asks the tourney winners and others that helped defend the town for help on the promised quest. He tells them of a rod that he and his brothers, Marvis and Fergus “The Impartial” Castlemaign dug up when they were boys. Marvis messed with it and blew up their father’s magic shop, killing both of their parents. So they broke the rod into three peices, one for each brother so that they must come together and put it back together to use it, reasoning that it was too powerful for just one person to have control of. Fergus has, of course, misplaced his piece. Marvis has stollen Alderus’s fragment and so Alderus is worried about Marvis getting hold of all three peices. He feels that since Marvis is always watching and scrying on him, it will be easier to send some people Marvis would never even pay attention to, suspect, or even notice such as some inconsequetial new adventurers. Agath the wizard and Douglan the dwarf inquire as to how powerful Marvis is, specifically if he is as powerful as Alderus. Alderus replies that the one in the family that has always been the best in all matters arcana is himself. Marvis dropped out of wizard school early on, thinking he was too good. His power has grown since then, but he’s mostly gotten more chaotic. He tells them where Marvis’s house is in the woods of Darkwood Forest to the north, about two days journey.
p. Alderus then goes on the collect items belonging to those that died in the attack to return them to their loved ones. Agath hands over the fireball wand and Singe the sorceror, gives back the chain lightning wand.
p. Agath the wizard goes to the Old D&D Temple to take a look at it. When he gets there, Content Not Found: malcolm-falkes, the relics shop owner, is lurking around, trying to move the boulder out of the way of the door. Agath shoos him away. Douglan the dwarf moves the boulder out of the way with Sam the Suli’s help. They go inside and through the hole in the floor to the crypt below. There are empty wall sconces, discolored where items used to be sitting. Two reliefs on the sarcophagus have been broken off. The third is still there and matches the goblin statuettes found in the relics store and on the goblins killed at the inn. The remaining one is broken, missing a head. Agath the wizard and Johnal the ninja are able to read the goblin engravings on the sarcophagus. It says in goblin, Here lies Drithgoth Sunderspear, king of all goblins. Agath detects that there is something magical inside. Douglan the dwarf is able to heave open the sarcophagus afther Johnal the ninja has searched it for traps and doesn’t find any. As it opens, a dust cloud is disturbed. When that clears they look inside and see broken fragments of glass, some in the shape of body parts. Douglan tries to find the head to see if it looks like a goblin, but it is broken into many small fragments. Vendetta the witch casts a mend spell and the peices form into a goblin body made of glass. Vendetta knows that there are only four wands that can turn someone into glass. They were made by Jeeves Castlemaign for his four children, Alderus, Fergus, Marvis, and Ingrid. In with the body they also find a shortspear. Agath the wizard identifies is as a magical +1 thundering shortspear. They notice a piece of rusty metal amoung the glass and inspect it to see that it appears to be very old woodsman’s ax. They can make out a blacksmith sign on it. Local and historical knowledge helps them to recognize it as Thornby’s old blacksmith, Abraham Bolle. The last thing they find in the sarcophagus is a golden septre with a fitting for a stone on it. The stone has been removed and the fitting has been fractured into four peices.
After leaving the crypt, the party goes to find the blacksmith, Abraham Bolle. They find him in the Tavern, looking worse for wear after the battle. He recognizes the ax and says that it looks like one that he made. He said he made many like it and has no idea how it got in the state that it’s in or how it got into the old temple. Douglan the dwarf studies him, trying to sense his motives, but he seems to be sincere and really not know anything. They give him back the ax. He offers to make and sell them a new one. No one is interested.
p. Agath the wizard, Douglan the dwarf, Vendetta the witch, Johnal the ninja, and Sam the suli begin collecting supplies to go on the mission into Darkwood Forest to Marvis’s house to retrieve Alderus’s rod fragment for him. Douglan the dwarf buys a keg of ale from Content Not Found: marvin-merrycup, the tavernkeep at the Whirling Dervish Tavern which is out of bussiness due to fire damage. Agath the wizard goes to retrieve one of the Glowing Devices that the goblins at the in had. When he goes to pick one up, he sees that they are attatched. He yanks one off and discovers that it was held on by tentacles. The device is still glowing and the tentacles still move and are reaching toward him. He can tell that the device is not magical. He takes it apart and finds a glowing organism inside. He studies the organism and thinks that it is some kind of extraplanar organism.
When they are ready, the newly formed adventuring party heads off into the woods. Almost as soon as they enter, Vendetta’s Raven sees goblins. The rest of them hear argueing and Sam the suli smells burnt animal. The goblins seem to be arguing over their dinner. Johnal the ninja and Sam the suli sneak up on them. They are so distracted by their arguing that they don’t even notice Johnal and Sam sneaking up on them. Sam is able to creep right up upon them, even though he is not being very quiet. Johnal skewers one with an arrow. The goblins are taken by surprise. Douglan the dwarf, Agath the wizard and Vendetta the witch take cover behind a large fallen tree in the path and shoot and cast spells at them. Sam kills one quickly. Johnal is knocked uncouncious when hit by two at once. Douglan climbs over the fallen tree and enters melee with Sam. The party struggles to hold their own. Vendetta stuns one and moves slowly around the tree through the rough undergrowth. Then she does massive damage with the thundering shortspear. Agath puts two to sleep and they start finishing them off, one by one, as Douglan rages. Sam scores a critical hit as he takes out the last goblin by punching him in the nuts. He has to crouch down very low to do it. While down there he says, “Hey, Dwarf, I can see you.” Douglan is barely standing as the fight ends. Sam shares healing potions with Johnal and Douglan.
p. Sam looks at what the goblins were eating and sees that it’s a rabbit. The party eats what’s left. They then hear rustling in the bushes. Agath takes a look sees a one-humped camel. Johnal knows that camels only live in the desert, which is accross the ocean from here. As Agath approaches the camel, it spits. It doesn’t act tame and has no harness or gear on it. Agath speaks to it, but the camel doesn’t understand him. No one in the group is good at handling animals. The party discusses eating it. The camel doesn’t appear to understand this discussion either.

As the farmers are running into town, the guards are closing up the gate. Everyone is running around franticly. In the middle of the square, between the statue and the town well, is the big, black prison building, which everyone, including the adventurers, thinks has always been there. The prison holds bandits and highwaymen. The two highway robbers that were just caught are being held in stocks outside the prison, as Dungar rushes past, gathering townspeoplde into the temple. The adventurers help to gather all the people into the temple. They find out that the catapult and trebuchet are broken, and no one knows how to fix them. The Goblins are firing in closer. Ethran, the fighter, Taven, the halfling rogue, and [[:johnal
|Johnal]], the ninja, go towards the dragon’s gatehouse. They shut and disable it after dragon takes flight. The dragon will begin to come after them but a tasty smelling goblin distracts the dragon. The goblins trebuchets start setting buildings on fire. The well is discovered to be dry. Andrinal, the cleric, after helping herd people into the temple, begins creating water to fight fires. Sam, the Suli continues fighting the fires with his wet cloak. Douglan the dwarf and Grigdash the Inquisitor are firing at the goblins. They can see that the town is surrounded by hundreds of goblins. They have sophistacted looking weapons, but they are only made of wood and stone. The goblins arrows begin reaching the town. Rocks and fireballs continue to rain on the town. The Whirling Dervish Tavern catches on fire, as well as the guard barracks, the temple with all the people inside, the potion shop, and the visiting wizard, Content Not Found: larrin_. The Relics store takes heavy damage from catapulted rocks. Alderus Redcloak creates a wall of fire around front half of the town. Ethram the fighter and Johnal the Ninja set up to defend the gate house. The goblins charge the town wall and begin climbing up it. Alderus holds goblins and repels others. Then he creates a gust of wind that blows the arrows away and goblins on the south wall keep falling off as the Dragon continues to pick them off. Screams of goblins are heard from inside the temple and Andrinal the cleric goes to investigate. He sees goblins pouring out of the temple fountain. Singe the sorceror and Douglan the dwarf move to help in the temple. Sam the Suli continues to fight fires.
Ethran the fighter, Johnal the ninja, and Taven the halfling rogue go to confront the goblins coming over the wall. The goblins run out of flaming projectiles and begin bombarding town with stones. Andrinal the Cleric, Content Not Found: duangar_ the sorcerer begin fighting goblins in the temple. Three wizards,Content Not Found: royce_, Content Not Found: thaylin_, and Content Not Found: edwin, Content Not Found: bradgar the dwarf, and Content Not Found: celestria, the paladin fall. Agath Stormarrow the wizard uses mage hand to pick up a fallen wizard’s wand of fireballs and starts shooting fireballs at groups of goblins. Sam the Suli puts the fire out at the potion store. He picks up 3 healing potions, 2 potions of barkskin, and a potion of enlarge person. He drinks a barkskin and enlarge person potion. 3 more goblins pop out of the well. Agath the wizard kills them with his burning hands wand. Tobias, the rogue, goes down into the sewers to try to find a way out of town. He finds dug out tunnels connecting to the sewers and follows one of them. He hears goblins coming and hides.He trips one as they pass and the other 4 notice and turn around to see him. He kills one of them before he dies. Sam the Suli sees a goblin pop out of the well holding Tobias’s whip and dagger. Sam kills the goblin. Alderus takes out goblins along the east wall with chain lighting and by summoning air and fire elementals. The goblins start coming over the wall in the southwest and souteast. Alderus polymorphs into a Huge Silver dragon and takes care of the rest of the surrounding goblins.
Grigdash the inquisitor runs into a group of goblins coming out of the Redwood Inn and fights with them. One scores a critical hit and almost kills him. A group of goblins climb over the wall and head into the old temple, pursued by Ethram the fighter and Johnal the ninja. Once inside they head for a hole that had been dug out of the floor, but Johnal slays them before they make it down. Johnal looks down the hole and finds a room under the temple floor. He goes down and takes a quick look around. It looks like a very old crypt and contains a sarcophagus with goblin engravings on it. He notices that the sarcophagus is chipped as though someone has tried to open it and parts of its decoration are broken off. Ethran the fighter rolls a boulder in front of the old temple door to seal it. More goblins are noticed inside the Redwood Inn. Agath the wizard sees them and sees that they are wearing glowing devices on their chests. He shoots a fireball at them and catches the inn on fire, but the goblins survive and retreat back into the inn. The fire is put out with the help of Sam the Suli.
Ethran the fighter, Sam the Suli, and Grigdash the inquisitor converge on the remaining five tough goblins with glowy things on their chests as they are going down the stairs to the inn’s cellar. After killing three, Agath the wizard puts the other two to sleep. The devices don’t explode, but continue to glow after the goblins are killed. The rest of the fires in town are being put out. Fergus the cleric and his daughter, [[:sarrina-castlemaign|Sarrina, heal those that are injured. Alderus the dragon chases away the black dragon that has come back to his nest.

The adventurers investigate the Redwood Inn’s cellar some more, but can’t find any secret doors or way for the rats to have gotten in. They know that giant rats are not native to this area.
The two innkeepers are arguing. Gareth of the Redwood Inn accuses Banthis, of the Fox and Hare Inn, of planting the rats in a scheme to take away his bussiness.
The town guards go back to working on fixing the town’s trebuchet and catapult. Thom, the Paladin, helps with lifting. A Dwarven war wagon comes in to town to help defend it just in case there is actually a problem with the goblins. The Hafling rogue, Taven, is curious about what a dwarven war wagon is. He takes a closer look to see that it is a wagon with Dwarves and their weapons. Duncan Creakshank, who noticed Beatice at the Whirling Dervish Tavern, shows up with flowers for her after the battle with the rats. Felix, the town beggar, offers to clean the Winchester brothers’ armor for a few copper. Content Not Found: wilhelm-the-bald_ challenges Yorrick to a dual in the square, but then runs away when he sees Yorrick is serious. Sam, the Suli, tries to trip Wilhelm as he runs away, but misses him.
Also in the square, [[s;darrick|Darrick]], an old, retired adventurer, is trying to fight the ancestor statue. The townspeople say that he’s crazy and often out of touch with reality.
Taven, the halfling rogue sneaks very, very stealthily to the abandoned part of town to look at the dragon nest. When he gets to the abandoned area he sees Content Not Found: malcolm-falkes_, Relics merchant, sneaking around. He can tell that he is hiding something under his cloak. Taven follows him and sees him go into his shop.
Meanwhile, Tobias, the rogue, checks out the tourney set up. He sees that everything is set up and ready. He looks at the rogue obstacle course and sees that it consists of a wobly plank, a rope and moat, a windmill device and a platform with a chest on it. He sees the pit trap on the platform, disables it, unlocks the chest and looks inside. After seeing that the chest is empty, Tobias tries to fix the lock on the chest so that only he can open it.
On the morning of the tourney, there is lots of fanfare as the adventuring party from Northbridge arrives. The town is excited some of the locals who had gone on an adventure once when they were young, are dusting off their old sickle, wand, and fiddle and entering the tourney. Farmer Dan was a bard with his fiddle, Farmer Eli with his sickle , and Ingrid, who is Alderus Redcloak, Marvis Chaosweaver, and Fergus the Impartial’s sister, is getting out her wand from wizard school. She put it away when she married Farmer Dan instead of pursuing magic like her brothers. They only went on the one adventure in which, Content Not Found: victoria_, their rogue, was killed.
Everyone gathers in the town square as the Content Not Found: Baron-Bainbridge_ begins to speak. He introduces his family, Content Not Found: morgan_, the older sister, who is glaring at Content Not Found: allette-bainbridge_ and Yorrick the whole time, her husband, Content Not Found: garrin, who is leering and snickering at everyone, Viola, the younger sister, who looks uncomfortable, and Allette, who is marrying Yorick, and can’t seem to stop giggling.
Alderus Redcloak is supposed to be at the tourney, but is late, so Baron Bainbridge is explaining the tournament events when Marvis Chaosweaver teleports in front of him. Marvis announces that this tournament would be much more fun if no one knew Common. Everyone in town forgets the Common language expect for Douglan the dwarf?, Grigdash the inquisitor, and Beatrice, the Oracle. Marvis then tries to teleport out again, but pops up next to the ancestor statue. A moment later he teleports out and doesn’t pop back up. A little later some of the adventurers notice the statue has changed and is facing the other way. They don’t detect any magic.
The horse race is about to begin. Beatrice, the oracle, takes the bets, taking over for Content Not Found: virgil, one of the town merchants, who can’t understand anyone. The horse race is close. Content Not Found: dungar from Guldarl wins it.
Alderus finally arrives in town. He was held up turning chickens back into people who were on the road on their way to attend the tournament. Yorrick urgently tries to speak with him, but is speaking gibberish. When Alderus figures out what’s going on, he reverses the spell, but must do it one at a time, to each person.
After everyone is finally back to normal, the Archery contest begins. Grigdash the inquisitor enters, but is eliminated in the first round by Basil Fleming, the ranger from Northbridge. Johnal, the ninja enters and wins the event, winning a masterwork shortbow.
Taven, the halfling rogue, wins the knife throwing contest and recieves a masterwork dagger.
Next is the the weapons fighting. First Douglan the Dwarf is up against an Elf. The elf has painted his face in an elaborate design. Douglan takes him out in his one first blow. Then Thom, the Paladin, fights a samuri and loses. Grigdash the inquisitor, knocks out the dwarf in one hit with his great ax. In the next round Douglan has a long fight with the Samuri as they keep dodging each others blows. Douglan wins in the end. Grigdash beats Dungar, the horse race winner, and Douglan and Grigdash face off in the final round. Douglan wins and gets a set of full plate armor.
After the fighting the rogue obstacle course begins. Jocassa from the Northbridge party, Sam the Suli, Tobias, and Taven, the halfing enter. Jocassa, Tobias, and Taven race accross the wobling plank and jump over the moat. Sam falls off and keeps falling off. He never makes it past the plank. Jocassa can’t get past the windmill. Taven is the first to tumble through but loses time trying to detect traps on the platform that the chest is on. Taven is not able to disable the pit trap and Tobias catches up. He already knows the trap is there, disables it and unlocks the chest which holds a masterwork dagger.
The Next compeition is hand to hand fighting. Sam the Suli enters and quickly scores a hit that almost knocks out his opponent, then trips her for the win. He easily takes out his second opponent without taking any damage himself and wins 200 gold pieces.
The next event is the wizard challege. Alderus has set up a magical tent. Competitors can either give up the challenge and walk out the way they came in or make it to the end and teleport out. First up is Beatrice, the oracle. She enters and finds the interior to be filled with darkness in which her dark vision doesn’t work. She casts light and sees an empty room with four plain stone walls. She detects magic and knows that one wall is an illusion. She walks through. In the next room there is a door on the other side and a lever on the ceiling, 15 feet up. She uses her precognition to see that moving the lever will open the door. She tries throwing her knitting needles at it, but it doesn’t move. She gives up and leaves the way she came in. Singe, the sorceror, enters next and lights up the room, he detects magic and sees the illusionary wall, he checks the door in the next room and finds it locked. He uses mage hand to try to move the lever, but finds out that it is broken. He tries to fix it with his mage hand, but doesn’t have the knowledge. He gives up and walks out.
Next is Vendetta the witch. She casts light?, detects the fake wall, mends the lock, uses her prehensile hair to pull the lever, the door opens and she enters the last room. This one has a dirty area in the middle of the floor and three arcane symbols on the wall. She detects that the dirty smear on the floor is magical. Through her arcane knowledge she knows that the symbols are for earth, fire, and water. She touches the magic area on the floor with her hair and nothing happens. She activates the arcane symbols. The water symbol shoots out water that cleans the dirty area to reveal a teleportation ring that rises up out of the floor on a platform. She puts an item? on it which teleports out. She then teleports herself out and is out of the tent.
Last to enter the magical tent is Agoth, the elven wizard. He lights up the darkness, detects the wall, removes the lever arm?, throws his staff at it. The staff breaks in midair and fits into the lever mechanism, and pulls the lever, the door opens and he detects conjuration magic on the dark area of the floor. He picks up dirt and puts it on the earth symbol, spits on the water symbol, and casts spark on the fire symbol to activate them which raises the teleportation ring. He stands in the ring and is teleported back to the room with the lever. The door is still open so he goes back to the teleportation ring that’s still up on the raised platform there and teleports out of the tent this time.
As the wizards go through the tent, the Joust is taking place. Ethran the fighter choses between the horses in Boris’s stable to ride in the joust. His choices are: Falcon, who tries to bite him, Ace, whose is scratching one leg with the other, Bandit, whose very skittish, George whose mean spirited, Hugo, who is very noisy, Legs, whose stubborn and won’t move, or Old Fred.
Ethran wins it, gets 200 gold pieces and gets to keep the horse he chose, Falcon, the biter.
To finish the magic contest Vendetta the witch and Agoth the wizard, who both made it through the magical tent challege have a wizard dual in a magical nonlethal damage arena. Magic missles fly, Vendetta summons a snake. As the dual goes on it’s becoming darker and darker, even though it is midday. Agoth defeats Vendetta and wins a wand of burning hands.
As mist is starting to creep into town, a rider comes in yelling that goblins are coming. He’s followed by fireballs landing about 20 feet short of town. Alderus immediately attempts to teleport out, but can’t.

p. The characters are in the Circus or traveling with the Circus for various reasons. They had just completed a show in Northbridge, near the edge of civilization. The famous Wizard, Alderus Redcloak, has been traveling around seeking recruits to participate in a tourney in the village of Thornby on Silver Snake River which is only a few days travel up the road from Northbridge.Thornby Area Map He asks the circus performers to compete. The tourney is being held to celebrate the wedding of Content Not Found: Baron-Bainbridge_ of Caldmor’s daughter, Content Not Found: allette-bainbridge_. There are to be competitions between veteran adventurers as well as new adventurer tournaments. There will be prizes for the winners, and Alderus Redcloak has a real adventure quest for the winners of the beginning competitions in Archery, Fighting, Jousting, Horse Racing, Unarmed Combat, and tests of magic and agility. Agoth, the Elven wizard, notices the tatoo on Alderus’s forhead is a symbol for an order of wizards known as the Elder Masters of Arcana who seek forgotten mystic magic. Alderus also tells them that the Cleric order, Followers of the Spiral Path, will be visiting Thornby during the tourney and paying homage to the ancestors there as they continue north on their pilgrimage to the Shrine of the Ancient Ones at Northwell. So they will keep the tourney safe. Alderus also tells them that he, himself, will be there as well, and will be putting on a magical light show.
A number of circus people are interested and decide to go, including Ethran of Mordheim, a fighter; Andrinal Lightson, a Cleric; Johnal Elfharrow, a Ninja; Grigdash, a Half-orc Inquisitor; Agoth, the Elven wizard; Tobias Aldridge, a rogue; Beatrice White, an Oracle; Beatrice’s grandson, Thom White, an Aasimaar Paladin; Vendetta, a Half-Elf Witch; Douglan Stonecaller, a Dwarven Barbarian; Singe, an Ifrit Sorceror; Taven, a Hafling rogue; and the Winchester brothers, Sam, a Suli fighter; Dean, a barbarian, and Bobby, a Gnome inquisator.
p. As the group arrives in Thorby, they notice the north end of town is completely abandoned.
Rumors are circulating around the streets and taverns. They hear that Farmer Dan has seen goblins lurking near his farm and is worried about an attack, but no goblins have been seen in awhile. The rest of the townsfolk think this is a ridiculous idea because the goblins are no threat. They are completely disorganazed and have never attacked a town before.
They learn that Baron Bainbridge’s daughter, Allete, is marrying a local farm boy, Yorrick Cogley. It’s causing a big scandal and no one is happy about it, for one reason or another. When asking how the two met, they’re told that, Yorrik, Farmer Dan’s son, and Magnus Pearce, Farmer Eli’s son, saved her from Bandits on the road and she fell in love with Yorrick. Alderus’s family is from Thornby, and Yorrick is his nephew, so he is helping to put on a big fancy tourney to impress the Baron’s family.
p. They learn that there’s a dragon nest in the gatehouse on the north side of town that the town guard has not been able to do anything about. Villagers avoid that entire side of the village.
p. The farmers set up fruit stands to sell to the people coming to town for the tourney. Farmer Eli’s produce is small, scanty and rotting. Magnus tries to sell some to people, but everyone is buying from Yorrick at Farmer Dan’s cart which is overflowing with a bounty of large, ripe, flourishing produce. Magnus looks angry. After not selling any fruit, Farmer Eli, who is Farmer Dan’s neighbor, is packing up his family and leaving town because he is convinced that goblins are actually going to attack the town, although no one else believes that.
p. People are talking about the wizard, Marvis Chaosweaver, Alderus Redcloak and the cleric, Fergus the Impartial’s brother, playing his tricks on entire towns. They hear that he’s been around causing mischief lately.
p. While drinking at the Whirling Dervish Tavern, they see Content Not Found: wilhelm-the-bald_, Duncan Creakshank, who is grinning and winking at Beatrice, Content Not Found: malcolm-falkes_ -Merchant of Relics, Phinneas Jarvis – Farmer, Content Not Found: elsa-bolle – Blacksmith, Old Jacob Crowley – Farmer, Content Not Found: elena-bluebow – Bard singing song about missing Goblin King who ruled a goblin empire, then about being in love with a farm boy who loves someone else, Farmer Dan Cogley, Yorrick Cogley – Farmer Dan’s son and engaged to Baron’s Daughter, Allette Bainbridge, Ephriam Cogley – Farmer Dan’s second son, the Northbridge Adventuring Party –Laurent Pember (Wizard), Basil Fleming (Ranger), Gregor Wolf (Bard), Jocassa Swann (Rogue), Frita Luitgard (Fighter). People in the tavern are placing bets on Wilhelm the Bald and the adventuring party from Northbride, who’ve been on a real adventure before, to win in the tourney events.
p. Drinking is inturrupted by commotion going on at the Redwood Inn. People are running out the front door, screaming about rats. The circus troupe runs over and opens the doors of the inn to see a huge room overrun with giant rats that is recessed into the floor. The rats are swarming out of the cellar, climbing on tables, swinging from the tapestries and chandelier. They help the town guards to kill dire rats, rat swarms and giant rats. After all the rats are killed the inn’s cellar is searched to see how the rats got in, but no way in is found. Food is scattered around from torn open containers that are too small for the rats to fit in. No other ways in, signs of magic or secret doors are found in the cellar. Gareth Carver, the owner, thinks Banthis, the other innkeep,
planted the rats.